Blog Branding: Show the World You are an Expert

I’ve mentioned repeatedly on this blog that your blog is your resume. It is the example you set for the rest of the world. You leave mini-resumes on comments all over the blogosphere, which can be easily tracked back to your blog, so your comments, as well as your blog, need to speak well of you.

Over on Career Hub I posted about the importance of blogging as a way of building a personal brand. Like all good bloggers, Kent knows the value of comments. He left one on my post and I went and checked out his blog.

Now just imagine that you are a recruiter or a senior company executive and you come upon Kent’s page. What is your impression? Mine was one of expertise. In what? In the areas of “leadership, strategy and performance.” It says so right under his name!

The impression made by this blog is completely different from the impression made by a resume. One says I am an expert sharing my knowledge. The other says “I need a job.”

The idea of creating a “personal brand” on your blog is a way of showing the world you are an expert. You know what you are talking about. Not only that, but you are showing the world that you not only know what you are talking about, but you are doing something about what you know. You are sharing your information. You are showing potential employers and customers that you are great at communicating and getting your point across. You know how to write. You know how to spell. Odds are, you know how to talk, too.

You never know where life will take you. Your blog could start you on another career or kick start the one you have. Make your blog speak well of you, and make sure it says only nice things.

3 Comments

I have to say Lorelle I was really impressed by this article as it is exactly the way I’ve been thinking with possibly a little more clarity. I started a ‘humour’ based blog because I wanted to showcase my writing, my design abilities, get a bit of a name and practise! This has followed with a more personal blog that I’m still finding my feet with as well as my wife’s blog (I did the design at least – the content is all hers and boy o boy she’s good!). So now I’m going to spend a couple of hours going over this site!
In case you’re interested (and I’m going to shamelessly plug here) the first blog was http://www.crypthunter.com and my wife’s is http://www.quietpaws.com.
Cheers!

Great post, Lorelle! This is one of my favorites ever, for the good reason that this advice is so often unheeded.

I think some bloggers, maybe even all of them at one time or another, have the tendency to write for themselves. Or maybe they just use that as an excuse when they write something uncharacteristic. But the internet doesn’t belong to any one of us. It belongs to millions of people, so darn right you better do your best.